Andrew Bocking, executive vice president of BlackBerry's popular messaging service, quit the struggling smartphone company after 14 years of service.
BlackBerry's Andrew Bocking stepped down from his role as an executive vice president of BBM, amidst reports of BlackBerry considering hiving off BBM into a separate company, which displeased Bocking. The Waterloo, Ontario-based company confirmed Bocking's departure from the company after 14 long years of service. A source said it was a "big loss" for the BBM division, according to BGR.
"I can confirm that Andrew Bocking, EVP, BBM has made the decision to leave BlackBerry. We thank him for his years of leadership and contribution," BlackBerry said in a statement to BGR, which first broke the news of Bocking's departure.
The company did not reveal who will take Bocking's position in the company's BBM division, but the BBM developing group will report to BlackBerry's recently installed president of global enterprise solutions, John Sims, Financial Post reports.
BlackBerry has long been planning to shift its cross-platform messaging service, BBM as an independent company. BBM is the only product that BlackBerry can currently rely on, as its smartphone business has fallen dramatically in the face of extreme competition from companies like Apple and Samsung. In a recent report earlier this month, market research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, CIRP, revealed that BlackBerry accounted for zero percent of the U.S. smartphone market share in the fourth quarter of 2013.
BlackBerry issued a statement to TechCrunch about merging BBM with the Global Enterprise Solutions team.
"The BBM organization remains as a group within BlackBerry and will continue to focus on BlackBerry and BBM strength in messaging and new areas of strength such as mobile marketing, community-building and enterprise messaging," the company said. "John Sims, President, Global Enterprise Solutions, who has extensive experience in mobile messaging, will add the BBM team to his organization."
